# Display of dictionary contents to file
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/display-of-dictionary-contents-to-file/122785
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** show, io
**Created:** [November 18, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/display-of-dictionary-contents-to-file/122785 "2024-11-18T19:25:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ferran\_Mazzanti](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ferran_Mazzanti)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2024, 7:25pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/display-of-dictionary-contents-to-file/122785/1 "2024-11-18T19:25:38Z")
Hi,
I have a general question regarding dictionaries display. I have a dictionary that has several fields, some of which are instances of types I’ve created that conatin really large arrays of numbers. When I print its contents to screen I get things like this
```julia
display(INP_PT_LB)
OrderedDict{Any, Any} with 24 entries:
"kind" => Float64
"rbm" => RBM_net{Float64}(Binary_01(), 180, 20, #undef, #undef, …
"Nβ" => 1000
"T0" => 2000.0
"λ" => 0.95
"Nflip" => 1
"α" => [0.315438, 0.356355, 0.84791, 0.873976, 0.925063, 0.878…
"u_ini" => Bool[1 0 … 1 1; 1 0 … 0 1; … ; 0 1 … 1 0; 1 1 … 0 0]
"xx" => Bool[0 0 … 0 1; 0 1 … 1 0; … ; 1 0 … 1 0; 0 1 … 1 0]
"NMC" => 100
"Nepochs" => 1000
"Nbest" => 1000
"IOUT" => "/tmp/dalenomas.res"
"Print_Bo" => true
"Print_List_Best" => true
"Iters_Print_Best" => 10
"List_Best" => false
"List_uBest" => false
"List_xBest" => false
"List_αBest" => 0.0
"Bmax" => 0
"umax" => 0
"xmax" => 0
"αmax" => 0
```
which is very nice because large arrays are summarized in one line, and I do not need to see every single number at this point. So display is doing the trick for me.
But now I want to store that same exact form to an ouput strem IO I have opened with
something like
```julia
IO = open("/tmp/dale.dat","w")
```
So the question is: is it possible to redirect the contents of display() to IO?
Notice a println(IO,…) or similar does not work, as it insists in printing the whole (laaaarge) arrays.
Thanks a lot.
---
### Author:  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2024, 7:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/display-of-dictionary-contents-to-file/122785/2 "2024-11-18T19:55:21Z")
> [@Ferran\_Mazzanti](#):
>
> So the question is: is it possible to redirect the contents of display() to IO?
Use the 3-argument `show`, which is what `display` calls under the hood:
```julia
show(io, "text/plain", INP_PT_LB)
```
(I would also call your variable `io` rather than `IO`, since `IO` is a type in Julia and it is confusing to shadow it with a variable.)
> [@Ferran\_Mazzanti](#):
>
> Notice a println(IO,…) or similar does not work, as it insists in printing the whole (laaaarge) arrays.
If you want to limit the output, you [wrap the `io` stream in an `IOContext`](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/base/io-network/#Base.IOContext-Tuple%7BIO,%20Pair%7D), e.g as `IOContext(io, :limit => true)`, where the `:limit` option causes it to truncate large outputs. This works for both `println` (which calls 2-argument `show`) and for 3-argument `show` (although the two output formats may differ).
The next version of the manual [will have a summary](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/54547) of how all these output functions relate, which you can [view now on github](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/doc/src/manual/types.md#output-function-summary).
---
### Author:  [@lmiq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lmiq)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2024, 12:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/display-of-dictionary-contents-to-file/122785/3 "2024-11-19T00:50:44Z")
TOML prints dicts in a very readable manner as well:
```julia-repl
julia> using TOML
julia> d = Dict("a" => [1,2,3,4,5], "b" => 1.0)
Dict{String, Any} with 2 entries:
"b" => 1.0
"a" => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
julia> open("dict.txt", "w") do io
TOML.print(io, d)
end
shell> more dict.txt
b = 1.0
a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
```
---
### Author:  [@Ferran\_Mazzanti](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ferran_Mazzanti)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2024, 6:24pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/display-of-dictionary-contents-to-file/122785/4 "2024-11-19T18:24:36Z")
Thanks people, these hints where really helpful and now I got the desired printing behaviour 🙂